Cohesion
by ncfan
Summary: -Nanao, Byakuya, Gin, Rangiku, Soi Fong- They love each other, in their own screwed up ways.


**Characters**: Nanao, Byakuya, Gin, Rangiku, Soi Fong**  
Summary**: They love each other, in their own screwed up ways.**  
Pairings**: GinRan, Byakuya x Nanao, Byakuya x Hisana**  
Warnings/Spoilers**: Spoilers for Turn Back the Pendulum and Soul Society arcs**  
Timeline**: Pre-manga**  
Author's Note**: Gin, Rangiku, Nanao, Byakuya and Soi Fong as teenagers, together. Scary, isn't it? Also, this references _Surrogate_; it's not necessary to read it in conjunction with this, but I wouldn't mind if you did.**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

**1**

They all meet in various ways, none of them what can quite be considered normal.

Gin and Rangiku, of course, already knew each other from their long days and nights together in Rukongai, when Gin had pulled a beaten, starving girl in off of the chilly autumn street. They always harbored a strong, deep bond even if no one could understand why two people so different could even stand each other's company, let alone grow so close.

Rangiku meets Nanao some time after the strange disappearance of four captains and four lieutenants from Soul Society, along with the banishment of Urahara Kisuke, Shihoin Yoruichi and Tsukabishi Tessai from Soul Society. The former finds her inhibited and buttoned-up, nursing hurts and feelings of abandonment alone, away from the light, in the dark where they can be allowed to fester and abscess.

Naturally, Rangiku won't let this stand.

Soi Fong and Byakuya know each other from the lengthy days Soi Fong spent trailing Yoruichi as she messed around with Byakuya's—in Soi Fong's opinion—soft head. They form a tenuous sort of bond after Yoruichi's disappearance, if only because Soi Fong can now partially put up with Byakuya's presence, now that he's sobered up just a little. Still has a hot and burning temper—not a short fuse but a _lit _fuse—that it will take him decades to outgrow, but he's no longer quite so apt to shoot his mouth off; no longer having Yoruichi to mess with him, he can calm down a bit.

Gin, naturally, meets both Soi Fong and Byakuya by spying on them and getting caught, sometimes in the most embarrassing ways (Byakuya wouldn't look anyone in the eye for a week). Soi Fong was about to educate Gin on what being a pincushion felt like, until Rangiku popped out of nowhere (apparently, she had been tailing Gin) to vouch for him.

One day, with a manic grin that smacks of mischievous malice—a trait no doubt picked up from long association with Ichimaru Gin—Rangiku gets the bright idea of playing matchmaker, via pushing Byakuya and Nanao together in a crowded room, literally.

When they collide, both stumble backwards, wondering what on earth happened. Byakuya quirks his head in confusion at the little girl, appearing for all the world to be a flustered twelve-year-old, picking herself up off of the ground in front of him, glasses askew on her face.

Nanao wishes for nothing more than to be allowed to curl up in a dark, damp corner and _die_. Or, to be allowed to kill Rangiku. Whichever is more convenient. She can barely manage a stammered "Sorry," and dip her head in a shallow bow before tearing out of the room, nearly hyperventilating and cutting a swath through the crowd of Shinigami, translucent skin flushing scarlet to the roots of her hair.

Byakuya, for the life of him, can not figure out what the hell just happened.

**2**

The first time they all meet in one place is when a flood in the summer has flooded out half the barracks in Seireitei. Rangiku, Nanao, Byakuya and Soi Fong are all transferred to Gin's quarters; Rangiku is most emphatically _not_ complaining, though she's more than a little peeved that all these other people are here too.

Byakuya spends of a lot of his time glaring at Gin; he's not forgiven the younger boy for what happened the day they met. Soi Fong is standing in one of the corners, swathed in shadow, glaring at _everyone_, being her usual charming self. Nanao, who is youngest of the group and closest in age to Rangiku and Gin, is painfully uncomfortable, doesn't quail under Soi Fong's withering stare as others might but refuses to meet Byakuya gaze who, perplexed, has been trying to get her attention all night. Nanao kneels by a low windowsill, legs tucked underneath her.

Seeing that something has to be done (Rangiku will_ not _allow her plans to come to naught), Rangiku volunteers to go get supper and hopes that she'll be able to think up a solution to salvage this mess on the way to the nearest cafeteria.

Gin takes his cue from her and mentions that he has a shogi board under the futon he sleeps on.

All stop.

A pin could be heard hitting the floor, which is carpeted.

This, of course, changes everything.

When Rangiku comes back, rice bowls stacked in hand, she finds Soi Fong and Nanao sitting opposite from each other, playing shogi; Byakuya and Gin are on the futon, watching intently for one of the two girls to make a move.

No one even seems to care when she tells them that there were only four bowls left in the cafeteria, as she sits down on the ground to watch the two girls play.

Gin and Byakuya end up eating out of the same bowl of rice, the latter never noticing, being so absorbed in the shogi game, until the bowl is empty and his chopsticks hit the ceramic rim.

Byakuya stares suspiciously at Gin, who only grins back.

**3**

Having determined that Soi Fong and Nanao know absolutely nothing about the joys of shopping, Rangiku vows to educate her tragically ignorant new friends—she insists on calling them friends, something Nanao puts up with but Soi Fong does not—and drags them both off in the direction of Rukongai. Since their division barracks are all still flooded and the whole place is starting to smell of mildewing wood, the protest is not quite as vehement as it otherwise would have been.

Byakuya, however, is using up all his self-restraint in order not to start screaming at Rangiku not to leave him alone with that freak—how he thinks of Gin.

Gin protests mildly at the use of the word freak and asks Byakuya if he wants to play some shogi.

The Kuchiki snarls and stalks off in the other direction.

Soon, however, he gets somewhat bored, and the faintest whiff of boredom on the wind is enough to bring Ichimaru Gin, grand blood hound of chaos, to his heels. Gin asks Byakuya, smile ominously cattish, if he wants to do something, and lays out the plan.

Byakuya likes to think he has mostly grown up by now. He still, however, has a deeply hidden love of well-executed pranks; Yoruichi rubbed off on him in many ways, and this is one. After a moment of deep contemplation that utterly belies the lunacy of what they are about to execute, he nods solemnly.

After every building in the second division has had girlish flowers—God only knows how much this will enrage the straight-backed Soi Fong—painted in garish colors all over the walls, Gin and Byakuya take a step back to formally commemorate the moment.

Then, they run like the Devil and all of his demons are after them until they get back to the Fifth division, and run their hands under astringent soap so there's no paint for Aizen-taicho and Kuchiki-taicho to notice.

This will be the last prank Byakuya ever pulls, simply because Soi Fong finds out about it. He still has the jagged, puckered scar on his chest to this day.

_Rangiku, Nanao and Soi Fong come back at sundown, laden down with shopping bags._

_Nanao has learned to love the joys of shopping, though she will practice it in more moderation than her blonde friend._

_Soi Fong…not so much._

**4**

Soi Fong has the tendency to burn out on training, badly, but this time, Gin decides, has to have taken the cake.

He's eavesdropping from a nearby tree the first time Soi Fong performs Shunko, and it's without a doubt a good thing for her that he is, considering what happens next.

Soi Fong performs Shunko, and does it imperfectly, a risk she should have anticipated but didn't, the result being that her reiatsu flies out of her and she collapses on the ground, out cold, the way she will stay for the next seventy hours.

Gin stares, breathless, from his hiding place, biting his lip and wondering what to do. This is…more than a little unusual, and he wonders if this isn't just a trap of Soi Fong's, to get him to show himself so she can try to fill him full of poisoned needles again. He wouldn't put that past her. She'll try anything.

When an hour and a half passes and Soi Fong hasn't moved a muscle, her growing pigtails not even twitching slightly in the wind, Gin comes to two conclusions.

Either she's dead, in which case Gin still won't have to do anything, or she's unconscious, in which case she's going to need medical treatment for sudden reiatsu drainage, and quickly.

Gin sighs wearily as he slides down from the tree, picks up the unconscious girl and flash steps in the direction of the Fourth division.

It's hard being a good Samaritan.

**5**

The cosmos shudders a little when Byakuya develops a bit of a big brother complex towards Nanao. His grandfather takes this as a good sign, that maybe Byakuya's learning responsibility, and in a way, he is, but unfortunately, his dying violent impulses take an upshot in vitality as to where maintaining Nanao's safety is concerned.

It happens that, in the course of following Kyouraku-taicho's orders at one point, Nanao runs afoul of the querulous Third seat of her division.

They get into an argument. He slaps her. Hard. And probably would have done more to her than that had Kyouraku-taicho not intervened and decided to lay down the law.

Kyouraku-taicho threatens to snap the Third seat's neck if he ever lays a hand on Nanao again, but when Byakuya hears about this, he does one better.

He _tries _to snap the Third seat's neck.

Using a sturdy wooden stave gotten off of the Kuchiki estate, Byakuya sneaks up behind the Third seat—he so detests this pitiful excuse for a Shinigami that he doesn't feel the need to give him a fighting chance—and, unceremoniously, brings the stave crashing down on the Third seat's head.

It only gets worse from there.

Meanwhile, at the Fourth division hospital, Kuchiki-taicho and Kyouraku-taicho are in the Third seat's room explaining exactly why he will _not_ be pressing charges, with Byakuya waiting outside, completely unapologetic, when Nanao shows up, white-lipped and demanding, in clipped tones so uncharacteristic, and yet so familiar of her, to know what's happened.

Byakuya spares no detail, and when he sees the shiny black bruise on Nanao's otherwise pale cheek, swollen and as big around as her clenched fist, he thinks that he should have hit the Third seat a little _harder_.

Nanao's reaction is not exactly what he had hoped it would be.

She is very silent for a long time, her eyes narrow and eyelids half-drawn like shutters over bluish violet irises, surveying his face with a piercing scrutiny that Byakuya's not entirely sure he likes, and then, Nanao speaks very softly, with a tone that sounds like she's trying to keep her heart from breaking in the words.

She tells him, quietly but with no doubt as to what the words mean, that Kuchiki-kun should not worry, that he should instead allow her to solve her own problems, and that it's unworthy of him to beat a man half to death for her sake.

As Nanao walks away, Byakuya's mouth falls open, and for the first time in his life he has no idea of what to say.

Coincidentally, Byakuya never does something like this again, and it's not because of the stern lecture on duty and propriety Ginrei gives him later.

**6**

It's notable that the only one Gin considers himself answerable to is Rangiku. Not even Aizen-taicho or Yamamoto-soutaicho are capable of curbing him, but one look from Rangiku is enough to silence him, one disapproving word enough to leave him chastened and apologetic.

Of course, Soi Fong and Nanao can hardly fail to notice this, and see a way to capitalize deeply.

Gin seems fond of Rangiku. _Very _fond, if Byakuya's smart enough to catch the point they're trying to make. He, of course, starts muttering about their feminine nonsense as soon as he catches on to what they're talking about and refuses, out of principle, to have anything to do with it.

Which is to say he was blushing so hard his ears and neck were both crimson, and he wanted to get himself out of the position that would have found him blushing much harder.

Rangiku's spent so long trying to play matchmaker with them (for some reason Soi Fong keeps bumping into Shiba-fukutaicho on the street, much to the chagrin of both, and she's still trying to get Nanao and Byakuya together, even though her efforts, over the long years, have borne no fruit) and has neglected her own love life; even if she did try to deny it, it's pretty clear the glitter in her icy blue eyes when she looks at Gin.

Soi Fong both take different flanks, setting up the day; Soi Fong convinces Gin—somewhat forcibly; kunai and Suzumebachi both make wonderful educational tools, and Gin knows how to take a hint—to go along with it, and Nanao hardly needs to give Rangiku any incentive.

Then, they take bets.

They follow the two around, dragging Byakuya in tow, and finally settle on the roof of a building, watching Gin and Rangiku below.

The two are sitting on a low stone wall, where beyond there is only undeveloped countryside; they have, of course, ventured out into Rukongai, where there is less attention paid to two—so it seems—teenagers walking around.

Very little is said, and Nanao and Soi Fong wait with bated breath and Byakuya rolls his eyes and tries to leave until Soi Fong pins him down to the roof by the sleeve with a kunai.

When the two below suddenly start kissing, it's like a floodgate has been let loose.

Soi Fong looks at Nanao with the air of expecting something out of her. Byakuya watches on in confusion and then shock as Nanao sighs and grumbles as she rifles through the front of her shihakusho for a few gold coins.

**7**

Gin ends up in the hospital after a mission, bed-ridden with several broken ribs, having narrowly avoided a spinal fracture. All he'll say is that the Hollow jumped him from behind.

Aizen-taicho doesn't visit, never so much as sets foot in the hospital for the whole time his lieutenant is there, and Gin's glad he doesn't; the sight of the man makes his skin want to jump and crawl, and he's afraid that, heavily sedated and high on antibiotics and painkillers, he might not be able to hide his dislike.

He is surprised, however, when others come visiting.

Okay, maybe he's _not _surprised when Rangiku shows up; Gin's fully aware of how far is too far when it comes to the lies. Her eyes are red around the rim and bloodshot, but she sheds nary a tear when around Gin and for that he is infinitely thankful. He's always hated to see her cry.

Rangiku passes through and out like a transient dream, blurry and pleasant and all too short.

Soi Fong comes in for a second, glares at him, tells him to open his eyes a little wider when he's killing Hollows and leaves. Gin manages to raise his weakened voice enough to shout after her that her concern is deeply touching.

Nanao is more polite, though there's a veneer of civility over thinly-disguised sarcasm in her speech. She tilts her head in a manner strongly reminiscent of Gin himself, and asks him if he is aware that when fighting Hollows, it is probably better to have his eyes open as wide as he can, in order to let in more light.

Gin sighs long-sufferingly. The eye jokes are getting _old._

When Byakuya shows up, Gin sinks deeper into the sheets and fully expects another eye joke. He can take a lot, but third time's the charm—or the curse—and he doesn't think he'll be able to maintain his grinning composure if Byakuya sees fit to participate in the mockery of Gin's vision habits too.

Byakuya doesn't joke or mock. Instead, all he does is nod briefly, plainly deeply uncomfortable, tells Gin to get better, and leaves.

Gin frowns, sinking into the pillow.

That was nice of Byakuya.

He's still going to find a garden snake coiled in the middle of his bed next week, though.

**8**

Every bit of kido Ichimaru Gin and Matsumoto Rangiku have ever known, know and will know, they learned from Nanao.

When she learned that neither one of them could execute kido to save their afterlives, she stared, wild-eyed at them both, and asked them how Gin had managed to rise to lieutenant and Rangiku to the rank of a seated officer without either of them knowing kido.

They both shrug, give her infuriatingly innocent looks, and Nanao knows she has her work cut out for her if she ever wants to bring them up to par.

**9**

Though Byakuya would never admit it to anyone, not even to save his own life, he's a little hurt when, after attaining the rank of lieutenant, Nanao ceases to call him Kuchiki-kun and instead addresses him, a formal, deferential note lingering stickily in the back of her throat, as Kuchiki-fukutaicho.

Byakuya and Nanao have highly differing versions on what constitutes an intimate friend. As far as Nanao's concerned, she has no intimate friends, none at all, and doesn't see how any of the others are all that close to her. She's never seen how _anyone _is all that close to her, not since Lisa left so long ago, and this is what Nanao never wants to admit, that her mentor's disappearance can still have such a deep psychological effect decades after the event.

Nanao claims she has no intimate friends. Byakuya would have liked to differ, if he could have.

Of course, he has never addressed her as anything but Ise-san. That would be rude.

Some raise their eyebrows when Byakuya still calls Nanao Ise-san after she's been promoted to lieutenant herself, but he refuses to change his form of address.

She's still Ise-san, no matter what sort of badge she's now wearing on her arm.

**10**

Naturally, when Byakuya meets his future wife out in Rukongai, he doesn't spend nearly as much time with his cohorts as he used to. He is absorbed with Hisana, with all thought of her, the sight of her eyes and hair and the sound of her soft voice and the smell of her skin.

It's only natural, after all. He's in love with her, and love can drive the wits or better intentions away from anyone. Of course, Byakuya could hardly be faulted for his violent reaction when his family tentatively suggested, seeing that he wasn't going to break off his relationship with her, that Hisana become his mistress instead of his wife.

People in the fifteenth district of Rukongai could hear him shouting.

Gin, Rangiku, and Soi Fong all have no idea of how to react to this sudden turn of events.

_Nanao, on the other hand, knows exactly how to react._

_She and Hisana meet the day the latter gets married. Byakuya is a little apprehensive without knowing why, but the two women actually get along quite well._

_Nanao doesn't quite know what to make of Hisana, but she likes her. There's nothing about this woman to outright dislike, and Nanao will always be fair, though it's a little troubling how the younger girl twiddles with her sleeve cuff, all the time. Where did she pick up this nervous tic? It wouldn't worry Nanao, except that it's in conjunction with the small bruised shadows under her eyes, and Nanao can't help but think that Hisana's past in Rukongai has followed her into Seireitei, some way or another. She can sympathize; the district Nanao was born in is nearly as bad as Inuzuri._

_But beyond that, she's not at all disturbed by this._

_A childhood crush is just that, a childhood crush, and Nanao's long outgrown it by now._

_She's long outgrown it, she tells herself._

**11**

Soi Fong breaks away from them. She doesn't really change all that much—she's still just as cold, just as disagreeable, just as rude and standoffish and aloof and violent as ever.

But she can't be reached.

She retreats into herself, and everyone is left to wonder one thing only.

_Why?_

**12**

About ten years after Hisana's death, Byakuya and Nanao have what essentially amounts to a one-night stand, though neither would take the name with any appreciation. It's completely out of the blue, with no warning but somehow expected and anticipated by them both.

They both know what this is. Both are frustrated, grasping at smoke they can't reach and longing for something they can't have. In Byakuya, this desperation is clear, but in Nanao it's more obscure and complex, not a concrete desire (there is one at that, but it takes a back seat) but a longing for something…something… She can't put her finger on it.

Byakuya however, is searching for his wife's face in any and every woman he sees on the street, and still doesn't see it in Nanao's face that night.

The feel of her skin is cold but strangely burning underneath his hands. Her heart is thudding wildly beneath her flesh; Byakuya can feel the arrhythmia of her heart when his fingers pass over veins.

To Nanao, Byakuya has become a stranger since his wife's passing, cold as a block of ice and hard as stone, but she sees some traces of the softer person he used to be—_and sees how softer she herself used to be, but that is simply too painful to confront_—that night, throughout her own fears and uncertainties and painful desires.

As it wears on, Nanao still thinks he's trying for nothing more than to see Hisana in her, see some remnant as she lies under him, still and edgy, not—she is a virgin at this point—quite sure of what's going to happen as his fingers wind in her long, loose hair and he kisses her, harder this time until she ceases to worry greatly on the subject.

Instead, Byakuya can't get out of his head the image of a time long past: of a young girl with shuttered eyes, telling him not to commit violence for her sake.

There's no explanation for this, and Byakuya shelves the worry, secretly relieved when Nanao finally shows some sign of responding. At least he won't be the only one who gets physical pleasure out of this, however short-lived.

It's barely an hour from dawn but still dark as the inside of a windowless basement when Byakuya wakes up to the sound of Nanao pulling her clothes back on, winding the front of her kosode with increasingly inept hands.

The movements are swift and somewhat hurried, clumsy as he hears her breath alternate between cool and calm and jagged and harsh. The shuffling sound is Nanao searching for her glasses, breathing quickening all the time, and Byakuya finally murmurs,

"You can turn on the lamp, you know."

A pause. Her back stiffens, and brilliant blue-violet eyes swing around to meet Byakuya's gray ones, squinting slightly, before they fall away again, almost as quickly as their eyes meet.

"No thanks," she whispers, and there's a catch in her voice.

Nanao eventually finds her glasses and her hair clip and goes through the clumsy process of pinning her sticky, sweaty hair back behind her head, hands shaking and trembling as though accosted by fever, though Byakuya can't see it himself. She tries to smooth her mussed hair back down into some semblance of neatness, but fails when her newfound cold sweats send her bangs sticking stubbornly to her skin.

Then, like the cold, clammy hands of Death itself on their shoulders, the reality of what happened a few hours ago hits them both hard, impacting on their skin.

Nanao's breathing is uneven and growing even louder as she pulls on tabi and waraji.

Byakuya doesn't say anything. He is at a loss.

Nanao's nearly crying as she leaves the room, stuffing her fist in her mouth to stifle her cries, and Byakuya has no idea what to say.

**13**

This turns out to be the final nail in the coffin of whatever friendship-relationship they had.

Nanao is mortified, and some of Byakuya's newfound ice must have rubbed off on her. Or maybe just added to what she was privately growing. She has always been growing into a harder person, but this has sealed her fate and promised her that she will finally become that airtight, weather-proof person she's always climbed towards. One who has no cracks beneath the veneer and can't show hurt, even if she is wounded nigh unto death.

Byakuya is left in a bit of a daze.

They will never allude to what happened again; it will never be acknowledged, and in the days that go past this they will cease to behave as if they ever knew each other at all. They can't meet each other's eyes; Nanao's go straight to ground and Byakuya's fly above her head. Their mouths stutter and their tongues twist and tie when they try to speak, and they eventually stop altogether.

The one time they meet afterwards and do actually interact, it's at a party that neither of them would have attended if they could have helped it, but ended up attending out of duty and politeness and because the person for whom the party was being held was someone neither one of them could afford to alienate.

Nanao's slipped away from the group and retreated into a dimly lit side room, settling down in an armchair. It's raining outside, water smearing on the night-painted windows outside, when she hears a rustle of linen behind her. Apparently, Byakuya has had the same idea. Her face goes white as ivory in unmitigated horror as he stands in front of her, uncertain and quiet and unsure of this whole thing.

Nanao's heart palpitates and Byakuya casts a shuttered look at her as he comes towards the arm chair, and kneels down so they are on eye level.

His hand shudders across her pale cheek and before either know what's happening mouths have locked and her arms are tight around the back of his neck, heartbeats taut and loud in their throats. Byakuya's hand winds in her hair and Nanao's already closed eyes squeeze shut even more tightly as they burn and sting.

A raucous laugh comes from the brightly lit room, a mile away and moments away, and the sound of someone in the hall is what stops it. Nanao disentangles herself from him and tears off in another direction, white-lipped and worrying with her sleeve cuffs the same way Hisana used to. Byakuya can only stand, silent, heart going utterly still, and watch her go. Memories and possibilities, paths not taken, die in the air.

He's having issues sorting her out.

Nanao's become a blur, of the afterimage of Hisana Byakuya's tried so hard to find but can never reach, of the girl with shuttered eyes, and of the pale, thin woman with long dark hair he shared one night with that felt more like an eternity than the span of no more than ten hours.

The reality is impossible to discern from all the conflicting images, and Byakuya just can't look at her anymore.

**14**

Only Gin and Rangiku manage to stay close. They are of course, lovers of a more permanent nature than Nanao and Byakuya ever were, linked at the hip, in tune and in sync.

Gin falls away from everyone else. He becomes ominous, dangerous, frightening, and only Rangiku, who is used to all his moods, all his vagaries and knows how to match them, is not unsettled or just a little frightened by his gradual retreat into the shadows.

Nanao absorbs into her work. Byakuya doesn't even try to reach her.

Still seeing herself as an older sister figure to Nanao, Rangiku does her best to keep an eye out for her younger friend. She shoots Byakuya suspicious glances, wondering what's happened to make relations between them all but impossible, but doesn't ask; she's probably better off not knowing. Their divergent lives consume them and they see each other and talk less and less and less.

Soi Fong won't talk to anyone anymore.

And Byakuya has become ice, inhuman and unapproachable.

They were barely cohesive, yet they stuck. Their bonds were feeble, yet they held for so many years. They could hardly be called friends, but formed a strong wall together.

But no longer.

**15**

It's a miracle that they lasted as long as they did.


End file.
